Bug#761065: ITP: cputool -- Utility which manages CPU usage and system load

[Nigel Kukard <nkukard@lbsd.net>]

Package: wnpp
Severity: wishlist
Owner: Nigel Kukard <nkukard@lbsd.net>

* Package name    : cputool
  Version         : 0.0.7
  Upstream Author : Nigel Kukard <nkukard@lbsd.net>
* URL             : https://gitlab.devlabs.linuxassist.net/cputool/cputool
* License         : GPL-3+
  Programming Lang: C
  Description     : Utility which manages CPU usage and system load

CPUTool allows the limiting of cpu usage of a process or a process group to a
given limit and allows the suspensions of process execution if the system
load exceeds a defined treshold.

 - why is this package useful/relevant? is it a dependency for another
   package?

This package is very useful for running backups from, or any operation which is
disk IO intensive. It pauses the process and waits for system load to drop,
when it has dropped it is resumed. This can occur multiple times per second.

It can also be used to give processes slices of CPU time to use. This is useful
when you want a program to only use a specific amount of CPU time.

Combined with the above, it can limit heavy CPU and IO operations by giving out
only a percentage of CPU time and pausing the process should the threshold be
exceeded.

Another sneaky thing you can do is run PHP in FCGI mode under cputool to limit
CPU usage.

 - do you use it? if there are other packages
   providing similar functionality, how does it compare?

I do use this utility on a large number of systems when doing backups or heavy
IO or CPU intensive operations.

and - Auto Nice Daemon
schedtool - Queries/alters process' scheduling policy and CPU affinity
cpulimit - tool for limiting the CPU usage of a process

CPUTool is different that it allows the limiting of CPU time to process groups
in addition to single processes. It also monitors load and pauses the process
should this exceed the specified threshold.

I got the idea for CPUTool from certain commercial vendors who while providing
the source code to similar tools had no intention on me assisting them on
improving them. I then wrote CPUTool which is its entirely own implementation
and only borrows ideas from other projects.

 - how do you plan to maintain it? inside a packaging team
   (check list at https://wiki.debian.org/Teams)? are you
   looking for co-maintainers?


I have multiple paid staff who are employed to maintain the software package
and for whom I will accept MR's for.

I will handle the packaging myself and uploading for the sponsor.

 - do you need a sponsor?

I do need a sponsor.

The project will be on mentors soon:
https://mentors.debian.net/package/cputool/